Heidelberg 1693 Public Demo

Development on the game began in January of 2018. The feature we worked the longest on is the musket. There was hardly a precedent from other games for a similar mechanic, so we could not simply take an existing mechanic and put our own spin on it. Instead it was necessary to dive into and really understand the 17th century in order to transform the historical rules of early gunpowder weapons into a viable gameplay mechanic for a 2D action platformer. We spent a lot of time visiting museums and poring over books in order to make the game as authentic as we could.

The goal of this demo is to conduct an early test of the core gameplay features, which are now considered complete, and to get feedback on these as we are ramping up production of the remaining game content. For the final game we want to feature many more enemies, locations and boss battles.

Rules

The core gameplay revolves around timing actions, such as attacks and jumps, in order to prevail in combat and survive the relentless onslaught.

It is important to understand enemy patterns in order to exploit their behavior. Taking advantage of enemies causing friendly fire is the key to success.

The Moon King's army is not composed of conventional soldiers; these are the living dead, and simply killing them once is not enough to guarantee their surrender.

There is only one antidote against the cancer of undeath: gunpowder and shot. Landing the killing blow with your musket will tear apart the body and make further resurrection impossible. Keep in mind that you can also shoot corpses before they revive.

Blighted Hearts, in their current implementation, are not final yet. Currently they act as an additional layer of health, with the added risk that gaining a second Blighted Heart will immediately kill you. The intent is to expand this mechanic and allow for alternative level routes and additional content that is unlocked by having these instead.

A video game by Prof. Guido Kühn and Sebastian de Andrade

Music by  Erzen Luboja.